Yeosu, South Korea

Thematic Pavillion Expo 2012. Yeosu

Degli Esposti Architetti, Lorenzo Degli Esposti, Paolo Lazza, Pierluigi Di Giacomo, Fhecor Ingenieros Consultores, 3TI Progetti Italia Ingegneria Integrata SPA, Jean-Christophe Lata

Human activities have a very large and growing impact on the biosphere and tend to reduce both biodiversity and environmental heterogeneity at many different scales. This is particularly true in agro-ecosystems and more generally in all exploited ecosystems like oceans and coasts. Indeed, to increase food production and feed a growing human population, agriculture and exploitation has successfully followed the example of industry in four ways: standardization, economy of scale, intensification and mechanization. In the 21st century, time has come to think about more sustainable development in the resource exploitation, and to rethink our level of permissiveness in relation to the level of pollution and toxicity of the surrounding environment that one can socially and economically hold. Specialists (like Jeremy Jackson) note that new events in the oceans, seas and coastal systems can be stated as globally threatening: (1) the loss of almost all the large animals by overfishing, (2) the flattening of the sea floor and loss of complex and diverse bottom habits due to trawling and other physically destructive fishing practices, (3), the globalization of species’ distributions by the willful or accidental introduction of species into non-native habitats where they commonly competitively exclude native species, (4) ocean warming that is shuffling species’ distributions and killing reef corals, (5) poisoning of food webs far more severely than land systems, and (6) over enrichment (eutrophization) of coastal waters to support population explosions of bacteria and other microbes and algae. All these change will have deep and stable effect at the global economy and social level, given that more than 20 % of the world population live on coastal lands or related to water resources, and with some countries particularly concerned by this problematic. This is the case for South Korea, aware of this fact and that is developing systems (like Pre-Environmental Review System, or Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) system) in order to tackle environmental problems, and organizations like KORDI (Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute) that aim “to bequeath a bountiful, sustainable and healthy ocean to future generation”. This is the environmental, cultural and intellectual context which we have to broadly consider in designing an icon for the “Expo 2012 Yeosu”. Indeed the aim of the Expo, as reported on the design information, is to create a media place to exhibit innovative views and technologies as the solutions for those global-scale problems, such as global warming and resource depletion, which are some of the most critical issues in this matter. Media, Icon and Environment are the words to illustrate our strategy. Global, National and Regional/Local are the scales to deal with in the design process. The double task for environmental and media issues has gone in pair with the multiple task for global and local focuses. These duality and contradiction have convinced us to propose a double strategy for the design of the building: on the one hand it will be an icon, on the other hand it must be related to the territory, in its two-folded entity of ocean and land; its condition is suspended, as our interpretation of the world is suspended, especially in these times of economic, environmental and socialcrisis. But the building’s condition is also in the reality, plunged in the real context, we cannot stay apart of it if we want to react and make the world better than it appears today. During the design process, these doubts and contradictions informed the mutual relationships between the water and the building to be done: we focused on the fact that the ocean was the origin of life, it gives birth to life and even nowadays sustains life: we went for a double building that is both suspended on the water and sub merged in it. It is a building made by a bridge and by an underwater tunnel, both “on” the ocean and “in” the ocean. The underwater tunnel will contain the Theme Exhibition: it goes from the depth to the surface, as originally life went out from the water into the land and the air. The bridge will make room for the BPA Exhibition: an object which is suspended on the water, it is just skimming over it in a respectful caress, showing how high-technology is able to live together with nature. History and knowledge must be deeply and critically read; technology and sciences must be used consciously and responsibly: these double attitude will allow the mankind to cohabit the world with nature, without losers. The landmark has been developed horizontally, above and under the sea level, avoiding a vertical gesture which could have struggled against the horizon line. Moreover the building will refer both to the technological and media imaginaries and to natural and territorial signs: a building that is both autonomous and contingent upon its specific space, through the process of the operational design, which will be further described. This cultural framework has direct impact on the lower territorial scales. The oceanic landmark, as well as being an exemplary for sustainable architecture and a tool to raise people attention on the environmental crisis, will act as a touristic epicenter for the sun belt area. This shift in scale, which may seem contradictory, is based on the impressive and futuristic design of the building, which will put Yeosu among the destinations to be visited: a “Bilbao” effect will collocate the city in broader maps. At the same time, these global and national issues will strongly revitalize the specific urban context of Yeosu, which will benefit from the presence of cultural and research functions contained in a building as monumental landmark. The apparent contradiction between architecture’s autonomy and its reliance to specific place and historical time has been investigated through some design operations. The project is a partial answer to a double question: what can architecture contribute to a place would not have without it, and how can an architecture be said of this place, and not of another. The operational design process is intended as a mean to motivate the object and to link it to its place and program, as well as a tool to displace the place in search of new possibilities and meanings. Local signs are used through operations to have new, but rooted, configurations: the motivation of the object, in this way, is neither local nor abstract, or both. The operations used are: survey, abstraction, scaling and insertion. The field of study, the object of interpretation, has been Korea in its political, geographical and natural declensions. Some elements have been selected: the oriental coast, the mountain channel in the north and its scaled version represented by the political border. Those elements fit with an interpretation of the Expo Theme “The Living Ocean and Coast” and have been used to define some tensions which are responsible of the design process. Through the operation of abstraction and the following one of scaling, a double alienation permits to use the representations of those elements as signs, which are inserted in the site and are used to form a diagram which can guide the design process. The shape obtained is both abstract and contingent, and its iconic value is directly referred to something, that is the geography of the surroundings, read to suit the requested needs. This process has been running parallel to the functional dimensioning and to the twofold theme of underwater tunnel / bridge. Neither the site nor the program are exclusively responsible for the formal result, or both. Curiously, such a process led to the configuration of a building which may refer to an eel, that can be read as a symbolic representation of the Expo themes. An icon has been found naturally and simply, without the direct aim to create it. The bridge, flying eel, will skim over the tunnel, swimming eel, in a unique moment of encounter just on the water level, towards the open ocean. This gentle touch, respectful of the surface of the water, figures the hope of fecund cohabitation of human beings and nature, technology and environments.

Europaconcorsi Beta

Thematic Pavillion Expo 2012. Yeosu